Category Man and the Moon

          Since the conception of Mangalyaan, ISRO had made significant efforts to involve more women in their project. Thirty per cent of the Chandrayaan 2 crew is constituted by women. Ritu Karidhal is one among them and is known as the ‘Rocket Woman of India’.

          Ritu Karidhal is an aerospace engineer and she now works as the Mission Director of Chandrayaan 2. She had played a crucial role in the development of the Mangalyaan project, holding the position of the Operations Director. Recognizing her work and potential, Ritu Karidhal was awarded the ISRO Young Scientist Award in 2007.

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          ‘Better late than never.’ This saying is true in the case of Chandrayaan 2. Though India was ready with all the payloads for the mission as per the schedule, it had to be first postponed to January 2013 and then to 2016. This happened because Russia was unable to develop the lander on time.

          Later, Russia withdrew from the project following the failure of Fobos-Grunt, a Russian mission to one of the moons of Mars. The technology used in Fobos-Grunt was also used in the lunar project and needed reviewing. Finally, Russia backed out, failing to deliver the lander by 2015. Following this, ISRO decided to go ahead with the project independently.

          After the development of the lander, Chandrayaan 2 was scheduled to be launched in March 2018. But, it was further delayed to conduct relevant tests and was planned for the first half of 2019.

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          Chandrayaan 2 does have a Russian connection. ISRO had made an agreement to work with Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency for the development of Chandrayaan 2. By an agreement made on 12 November, 2007, the two agencies signed to share the responsibilities of the lunar mission.

          ISRO was to take the major responsibility of building the orbiter and rover while Roscosmos was supposed to develop the lander. The government of India chaired by Manmohan Singh approved this pact in September, 2008. Within a year, the design of the spacecraft was completed and was approved by the scientists from both the countries after a joint review.

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          Chandrayaan 2 was launched with the help of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. It is popularly known as GSLV Mk III.

          GSLV Mk III is a three-stage medium-lift launch vehicle developed by the ISRO. It is a multi-purpose launch vehicle, initially designed to launch communication satellites into a geostationary orbit. It is now identified as the launch vehicle for manned missions under the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. It has a higher payload capacity than GSLV Mk 2. It can carry a payload up to 10,000 kilograms to the Low Earth Orbit and 4,000 kilograms to the Geostationary Transfer Orbit.

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          Chandrayaan 2 carried a total of fourteen payloads- eight for the orbiter, four for the lander, and two for the rover. Though NASA and the European Space Agency initially planned to provide scientific instruments, ISRO had to reject them due to weight restrictions.

          In fact, ISRO in 2010 made it clear that it won’t be carrying foreign payloads. However, a month before its launch, NASA made an agreement with ISRO in which it was decided to carry a small retro-reflector developed by the NASA. This was added to the lander’s payload, which contained other instruments designed for measuring seismic activity, determining the elemental composition of the lunar surface, mapping the lunar surface, studying electron density and so on.

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          The third module of Chandrayaan 2, the Pragyan rover is a robotic vehicle with six wheels. It weighs 27 kilograms and is designed to operate on solar power.

          Pragyan rover was built to perform a detailed on-site analysis of the lunar surface and transmit the data to the lander. It was expected to work for one lunar day, moving at a speed of 1 centimetre per second. Two of its wheels have the ISRO logo and India’s emblem that would leave a patterned track on the Moon. It contains two payloads and was designed to travel a distance of 500 metres.

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          Chandrayaan 2 paid tribute to Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of the Indian space programme by naming the lander Vikram. 2019 marks Vikram Sarabhai’s 100th birth anniversary. It was designed to function for one lunar day that is 14 Earth days. It weighed 1,471 kilograms.

          Vikram lander contained a total of five engines and a set of scientific instruments. It was supposed to detach from the orbiter and get into a low lunar orbit in order to deploy the rover. After detaching the rover, the lander was supposed to stay on the lunar surface for further scientific explorations for fifteen days. Unfortunately, Vikram could not attain soft-landing, it crash landed instead. The connection with the lander was lost initially. Though the lander was later spotted through thermal imaging, its condition is not known.

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          Chandrayaan 2 had three components- an orbiter, a lander and a rover.

          The orbiter carried eight scientific instruments. Out of these, two are improvised versions of the instruments on Chandrayaan 1. The orbiter’s structure was manufactured by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. It weighed 2,379 kilograms and was designed to work for the span of a year.

          The orbiter was designed to make scientific observations of the Moon. The Orbiter High Resolution Camera made high resolution observation of the landing sites before the separation of the rover and the lander.

          The orbiter transmits the information collected by the lander and rover back to Earth; it is capable of communicating with the Indian Deep Space Network. It orbits around 100 kilometres above the lunar surface. The orbiter works on solar energy and was expected to last for 7.5 years.

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          The launch of Chandrayaan 2 was initially scheduled for 14 July, 2019. But, it was postponed due to a technical error. After the long wait, Chandrayaan 2 was launched on its course to the Moon on 22 July, 2019, a decade after the launch of Chandrayaan 1. Planned for duration of seven years, the mission was launched at 2:43 PM by GSLVMk III from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

          On 20 August, 2019, Chandrayaan 2 reached the orbit of the Moon and began its efforts to land the Vikram lander. Both Vikram and the rover were scheduled to land in the South Polar Region. But things did not quite go as planned. The Vikram lander slightly deviated from its intended path and the communication with it was lost for a while. K Sivan, 1SRO chairman later confirmed the location of the lander.

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          Chandrayaan 2 was a highly complex mission. It aimed to explore the lunar exosphere, lunar surface and the sub-surface in a single mission with special focus on the lunar South Pole. Also, it was the first mission that aimed at soft landing on the lunar South Pole.

          The lunar South Pole remains in shadows for much longer time than the lunar North Pole. Therefore, there is a possibility of presence of water in these permanently shadowed areas. Chandrayaan 2 contained India’s first lunar rover made out of home-grown technology. Though Chandrayaan 2 was faced with many challenges, it succeeded in proving India’s technological advancement.

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